


To Defy Assignment

by RiverWolf



Series: The Aftermath of Chaos [1]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Chaos Squad, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Rise of the Empire Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverWolf/pseuds/RiverWolf
Summary: What happens to a life when its pre-assigned meaning is suddenly stripped away? In the aftermath of the Clone Wars, survivors look for peace in the rubble of the fallen Republic. This story is a part of a series of stand alone pieces that follow survivors of Chaos Squad, a small group of Clone Troopers under the late General Windu, and those who joined them in a search for a new purpose in the shadow of a fledgling Empire.





	To Defy Assignment

As the ship shuddered and lurched off of the landing pad, making its way into the hazy night sky, Stitch felt a different kind of anxiety dig a pit in his stomach. The supply drop had been routine, and under the circumstances, that was the best he could hope for. He sighed, trying hopelessly to alleviate a bit of the weight on his chest. When it didn't lift, he shifted the weight of the heavy crate in his arms and turned back towards the warehouse at the end of the platform. The work had to be done regardless. There'd be time to process things once the treatments had been distributed.

He'd trained his whole short life for this, he thought begrudgingly as he felt his way across the rubble-strewn pathway in the dusk light. He'd been prepared to watch men die under fire, to work with precision and care while his brothers screamed and writhed beneath his unsteady hands. His training had been designed to desensitize him, to cement procedure in his mind when everything started to unravel around him. He'd graduated, donned his pristine armor, and boarded his very first gunship with a sense of purpose, but the moment his boots hit alien dust, he'd realized how mistaken he'd been. Every death had been jarring and raw, despite his polished bedside manner. Every final breath he'd witnessed took his own as it dissipated, until he started to resent the way his own lungs filled again when his brothers fell silent at last. Still, he'd been prepared. He'd known the risks.

Nothing he'd ever known could have prepared him for this.

Willing himself to ignore the icy feeling spreading through his limbs, he shoved the warehouse door with his shoulder, clutching the crate to his chest a little tighter as he did so to compensate for the jolt. The door gave just enough for him to slip through, crate and all, and he paused for a moment on the threshold to allow his eyes to re-adjust to the darkness inside the warehouse. He could feel himself stalling, and that sent a pang of guilt through his chest. Towards the back of the warehouse, a fusion lantern emitted a sickly orange glow from around the corner where he'd set up his makeshift medbay. A few voices, not yet as deep as his own, filtered out to where he stood. This was unavoidable. He wasn't sure if his fatigue came from hefting supply crates all day, or from the weight of responsibility he had to bear, but for now, it didn't matter. Approaching the corner, he took a deep breath and pushed his way through the plastic curtain that surrounded the medbay's perimeter.

"Stitch is back!"

The lump in his throat rose immediately in response to the hopeful young voice. He took a deep breath and returned to the place he'd been trained to go when it was time to administer care, but desperate eyes latched onto him like tiny hooks.

"Stitch! Did... did you get it...?!"

He reluctantly met the eyes of the young clones that sat huddled on the bedrolls he'd managed to collect with Skyla's help. They were all rigid, and a few of the youngest were restless and agitated, their eyes rimmed red.

"Yes... I have it. I'm sorry, you know I wouldn't have left it this long between doses if I'd been able to do anything about it."

His voice had an edge to it that he hadn't intended. Quietly, he knelt beside the crate and pried the lid free, watching their eyes fixate on the precious contents of the shipment. It had been harder to secure the hypos this time. The Empire's reach was widening, and even on backwater planets like this one, it was getting harder and harder for smugglers to operate with any kind of reliability. Especially not when their cargo was something so heavily regulated.

Stitch removed one tiny ampule from its cushioned space in the crate and prepared it carefully, wishing desperately that he had some way of synthesizing the treatment himself. It had been publically celebrated as a cure-- a treatment for the accelerated growth rate that put clones out of commission at twice the rate of a human soldier. It was heralded as a merciful gesture from the Empire to its troops, but Stitch had seen the medical implications beyond the propaganda. The Empire commanded loyalty through addiction. The treatment extended their window of service to the Empire. Before him, a young clone half his age was trembling. _Withdrawals_. The thought made Stitch feel physically sick. The young clone tilted his head to the side, anticipating the injection. It wasn't the freedom the Empire had promised them. It never had been. It was the promise of a purpose. Of order from chaos. Gently, he parted the boy's shaggy curls and pressed the loaded hypo to his neck. Injected. Released.

The boy's rigid muscles eased almost immediately, and Stitch lowered him gently back onto his bedroll, disposing of the empty hypo, and prepared another to repeat. His knew the procedure so well his actions were unconscious. He'd been trained to be efficient. Time wasted was life lost, and clone lives were expensive resources in the later days of the war. He'd heard the arguments himself. He watched the holonet broadcasts with a knot in his stomach as senators bickered and fought over the value of the lives of those he'd fought to save on the front lines. They'd had some champions, for which he was grateful, but he couldn't force himself to ignore the roar of the protests, the Coruscant citizens bearing signs that painted his brothers as abominations. They'd had no choice in anything, of course, but they'd done their duty with pride, under the banner of the Republic they'd been born to love. Until it all came crashing down around them.

So much of what had happened after the Order was issued was still a blur to Stitch, and he preferred to keep it that way. Finishing the last dose of injections, he monitored the boys as they slept for a moment, passing each one with a battered diagnostic scanner he'd managed to take with him when he'd finally run. He'd lost the Republic, and he'd lost the purpose he'd been assigned at creation. For the first time in his short life, he'd had to make a choice that he would be forced to own. Dimming the fusion lantern, he paused for a moment at the edge of his tiny sanctuary. He'd been assigned his purpose as a medic of the Grand Army of the Republic, but this tiny bubble of order at the heart of a dingy, Outer Rim planet was his. He'd rejected the Empire, and in so doing, he'd defined his purpose on his own. His life had been a commodity, a resource to be depleted, and he'd made his peace with that. But here, hidden amongst decaying buildings and the near-constant noise of the city, he was free of the cycle he'd been forced to play a part in for so long. He was done repairing lives so that they could die more strategically. His new war would be fought against the Empire, repairing lives so they could finally _live._

He left softly the way he'd come in, setting the security measures Skyla had built back in place. These boys had never known war the way he had. The Empire's plans for them couldn't touch them anymore, and if that was his only legacy, it would be enough. For a moment, he leaned against the doors to the warehouse. The night breeze was hot and smelled like rotting garbage, but he barely noticed it anymore. On the horizon, above the neon and durasteel and roaring skylanes, a tiny cluster of stars was barely visible through the smog, and in spite of his exhaustion, he felt the corner of his mouth curl into a shadow of a smile. Every cargo drop brought them that much closer to freedom and a way out of the Empire's grasp. For now, it was enough. He drew his hood up, obscuring the features he shared with countless others scattered across the stars, and slowly let himself dissolve into the city's life pulse as made his way to the cantina.


End file.
